Eucalyptus Lehmanii bark dyepot

E Lehmanii (bushy yate) has a very distinctive arrangement of buds, flowers and fruit.  When I was a kindergardener, we used to put the long bud caps on our fingers and call them witch’s fingers and chase each other around.  I can’t pretend to have had any sophisticated critique of the concept ‘witch’ at that stage in my life!

I came across some planted as street trees while I was out doing a run with friends.  On the way back to our car, I managed to collect some bark–since it had helpfully fallen.  I also collected a few leaves.  I have a sample card from a previous experiment with bushy yate leaves from a friend’s property, which gave quite a strong orange-brown.

I used iron with the leaves, and the contribution from the iron on this occasion was really quite intense.  Before…

After… a result that won’t have me rushing out to collect bushy yate for leaf prints, but a result just the same.

And as for the bark pot… tan, again!  I would have to rate the biggest take home message from the series of bark dye pots this summer as being that alum really makes a difference with the Eucalypt barks I’ve tried.  With leaves, I seldom see any impressive difference between alum mordanted wool and plain wool.  I dye with E Scoparia bark often and have found no point in mordanting with alum (though this experience makes me think I should try again and double check). The bark pots, however, have given various shades of tan without mordant and much stronger browns with alum, and E Lehmanii is no exception. On the left, sample card from a pot of fresh leaves.  On the right, results of the bark pot, simmered for an hour and a half.